


After the Black Prince

by TheDamselfly



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Friendship, Genderbending, POV Outsider, Physical Abuse, Post V-Day, Sister-Sister Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-09-18 10:08:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9379751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDamselfly/pseuds/TheDamselfly
Summary: She's managed to run only a few meters away before the engine revs again, and there's a squeal of tires and another awful crash, and she looks back just long enough to see the front end of Rottie's car mangled with the panda.Oh, goddammit,Eggsy.***Where Ryan is actually Rion, left behind when Eggsy gets recruited to Kingsman. A story about friendship, sticking together, and finding a way out.





	1. Chapter One

Jamal makes the mistake of pointing at Rottie's table, and suddenly Rion is backing away from her chair, pint left half-drank, hands splayed non-threateningly and averting her gaze as much as she can while still keeping everyone in her peripherals. Eggsy, the gigantic idiot, is pushing his luck like he always does, touching Rottie on the elbow like they're friends before sidling out of the way. Rion would never have the balls to do it, has always tried to stay well out of reaching distance of any of Dean's goons, but Eggsy has some sort of invincibility around him. 

They're outside for all of three seconds before she tucks her hands in her jacket pockets, because the nights are still cold and the only pair of mittens she has are raggedy and don't fit the look she's been trying to pull off lately. Fuzzy mittens and a leather jacket just won't cut it.

"They weren't fuckin' worth it," Rion says, because Eggsy's face has gone a bit blank, and Jamal looks put out that he's laid down a few pounds for a drink that Rottie's likely downed by now. 

"It's freezing," Eggsy says. Rion pops her hood up and glances over at him just as he pulls one hand out of his pocket. "Why are we walking?"

This is so incredibly not good.

"You jacked his fucking car keys, bruv?" Jamal is not an idiot, and he knows where this is going, too.

"Yeah," Eggsy says. "Now we're gonna nick his car."

He takes two steps to the bright yellow monstrosity that Rottie coddles, and Rion meets Jamal's gaze. There's really no doubt what they're about to do, but sometimes she likes to make sure that she's not the only one who realizes that they're essentially following an insane person around.

Jamal is not an idiot, and he knows what's coming, too.

The car chirps brightly at them, a sure indication to Rottie inside that something's about to happen, but they're all dashing for the car like the little mad idiots they are. 

"Fucking..." Jamal mutters, even as he's reaching for the door.

"Shit," Rion says, because she has been here before and it never ends as well as Eggsy wants it to.

Eggsy is already pulling doughnuts before she manages to get her seatbelt on, but it means that by the time Rottie storms out the doors of the Prince, she's already got her window cranked down and is waving two fingers at him, grinning like a loon. He's shouting at them from the sidewalk, face screwed up as he points uselessly at them, but she can't hear a word of it over the screeching tires and the boys hollering in her ear. 

She's in the front seat, which means she gets a perfect look at the fury on Rottie's face every time the car swings around again. There is no doubt that they're going to pay for this tomorrow, but in the meantime, they might as well make it worth it.

"Floor it, Eggsy!" she shouts, riding high on adrenaline and making bad decisions. The blankness that has been haunting Eggsy's features is nowhere to be seen, and he's smirking as he shifts into gear and they roar off around the corner. He looks _alive._ "Floor it!"

Their neat little getaway has a kink thrown into it about three seconds later, when they come nose to nose with a panda car. She can see the look on the coppers' faces as they try to process what they're seeing before the driver lights the top up, which is just long enough for Eggsy to throw them into reverse and backtrack past the pub. Rottie is still out front, already on the phone, likely bitching to Dean.

Bloody perfect.

They whip past, Rion and Jamal still encouraging Eggsy because they're all in this together now, aren't they, and he's their best shot of getting out of this mess. Eggsy's been a natural behind the wheel since the first time he turned an ignition over, even if he's never owned his own car.

The rear end of Rottie' car scrapes against the pavement as they roar over rough stretches of road, and Rion is hanging onto the dash and the window frame just so she doesn't bounce straight out of her seat. She's staring the coppers right in the face as Eggsy drives, and she can't help but howl with laughter. Her blood is pumping fast as they weave through traffic, dodging cars and busses so neatly that it's like Eggsy planned this route before they even left.

She waves cheekily at the police, who do not look very impressed.

Eggsy is twisted around in his seat, checking for available space on the road and taking every inch that's there, until he jerks them hard to the side and Rion's whole front suddenly blooms with pain where her seatbelt has caught her, and the sound of the car crunching is background noise to the ache in her chest.

"Foxes are vermin, cuz," Jamal says. He must've been looking out the rear window too. 

A fox. A damn fox is going to get her put on probation. Or worse.

"Should've driven it over," she says, even though she likes foxes because they're a pretty colour and have bushy tails. Eggsy's knuckles are white against the steering wheel.

"Should've done a lot of things," he says, eyes fixed on the patrol car. "I'll sort this out. Get out of the car."

Rion stares at him. She thinks Jamal must be doing the same. 

Eggsy turns to look at her, and the fleeting joy he'd found has been replaced by some sort of determined rage, because he shouts, "I said, _get out of the fucking car!"_ and she and Jamal are scrambling out the doors an instant later.

She's managed to run only a few meters away before the engine revs again, and there's a squeal of tires and another awful crash, and she looks back just long enough to see the front end of Rottie's car mangled with the panda.

Oh, god _dammit,_ Eggsy.

***

Rion ducks down alleyways and doesn't run in a straight line for more than two blocks at a time. She runs until she's out of breath, and then pushes herself another few blocks just to be sure.

There's no sirens behind her when she finally staggers to a stop, leaning up against the side of a building and letting her lungs try to heave enough oxygen back into her body. The shoelaces on her left foot are mostly loose, and if she'd kept going, she would've certainly lost her trainer in the next few minutes. Rion sinks down to the ground, ignoring how filthy it likely is, and struggles to calm her shaking hands enough to rework the laces. And then her legs are exhausted, so she just stays low, shoulder pressed firmly to the brick wall, knee digging into the ground.

It takes a long few minutes for her chest to stop heaving, and she rubs at the stitch that's spearing through her ribcage. She's a little ungainly getting to her feet again, wobbling on unsteady legs. God, it's almost a good thing she just ran her heart out; it's so cold outside that a walk in any other circumstance would be a real problem. At least now she's flushed hot under her jacket. Rion keeps her hood up against the wind, evaluates where she's ended up, points herself east and starts walking.

It was already pretty late when they met up at the Black Prince, and by the time Rion shuffles up the steps to her front door, it's nearly midnight. With any luck, her dad's already asleep. She holds her keys tight in her fist so that they don't jangle too much when she opens the door, but it doesn't help her, in the end.

Somehow, word's already gotten 'round.

Her dad's got the telly on, something stupid that plays late at night when no one's actually watching. His eyes are looking at it, but Rion doesn't think he's seeing a single thing.

He certainly hears the door open, though.

"What in the bloody hell do you think you're doing?" he growls, pushing out of the chair. Rion freezes, hand still on the doorknob, keys clenched in her fist. She hasn't even pulled the key from the lock, yet.

He's not a big man, her father. Only an inch taller than herself, a bit wider where she's pretty thin. But part of her will always remember the way he towered over her when she was little, a giant with heavy hands and a short temper.

"Don't got nothin' to say for yourself?" he presses.

There's nothing she can say that'll make this better.

She gives the key a slight tug to try and loosen it from the door, which has always been finicky at best. Her dad catches the motion, rips the keyring out of her hand and wrenches it from the door. The keys jangle merrily when he whips them across the room.

Rion may be twenty-four, but she's never felt smaller and more helpless than when her dad is in a towering rage. She barely has time to get her forearms up before he starts to smack her around the ears.

***

She comes to in a daze. It's still dark out, and she's curled up against the front door, closed now. She sniffles, wipes a trace of blood away from her nose, and shifts to her knees.

The door to her bedroom creaks a little when it's opened, but Rion slips inside without waking Mackenna. She checks to make sure her sister is tucked in tight, hopefully having slept through the chaos outside their bedroom door. She toes off her trainers but keeps her jacket on when she rolls into her narrow bed. Her face pounds in time with her pulse.

The digital alarm clock reads out 2:07.

With one hand, Rion digs about in her end table drawer until she finds a loose paracetamol, and swallows it dry. It probably won't do much, but it's better than nothing. She drags the blankets over herself and curls her shoulders in.

She hopes Jamal made it home safe.

She hopes Eggsy isn't in too much trouble.

***

Eggsy just... disappears.

Rumour has it that he was taken up to the police station, then let go for reasons that no one can quite figure out, considering he ran a stolen vehicle point blank into a police car in front of the coppers.

And rumour has it that he was spotted at the Black Prince around noon with a posh bloke. It all gets a bit muddled in the storytelling, like someone's leaving out a few key details, but it sounds like Rottie and Poodle and the rest got their arses handed to them.

Rion can't imagine it was Eggsy. He's ballsy and daring but never quite _stupid,_ and she can't imagine why this would've finally been his breaking point. Not after he held it together after his mum got pregnant, and not after he's been sticking around to keep things level enough for Daisy. Not after dealing with Dean every day for years.

And rumour has it that he threatened Dean, or something, and he's out of the flat for good.

Dean and his boys have been tearing up the estate in their rage all day long.

Rion learns most of this by text from Jamal, whose parents have essentially stopped trying to parent him in any way, and haven't even acknowledged that he was out joyriding last night. She swipes some concealer from her mum when she scrapes the bottom of her own tube, covers up the worst of the bruising, and sneaks over to Jamal's.

"Jesus," Jamal says when he gets a look at her, because she's gotten pretty good at covering up the dark blemishes, but Jamal still knows the signs. "Can I get you anything?"

"Painkillers, if you have them," Rion says, sinking onto his bed. Jamal disappears into the bathroom and comes back with a bottle, a few pills still rattling along in the bottom.

They compile the knowledge they've gathered, trying to form a whole picture of what happened after they ran from the scene. There's holes in the story, bits that no one seems to know. Who was the bloke in the pub? Where has Eggsy run off to? How the hell did he get himself out of jail?

They both try texting Eggsy, several times each, but hours go by and there's no response.

Days go by, and there's no response, until Rion's phone chirps one morning. _Message undeliverable._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this idea about what it was like to be left behind after the whole disaster with stealing and crashing Rottie's car. Eggsy had Harry save him, but Jamal and Ryan didn't have that. And as far as I can tell, Eggsy never let them know where he was off to, or that he was okay, and his phone probably got destroyed in the underwater test, if it was even still on him at all.
> 
> I have a rough idea of where this is going, but ideas/suggestions are always welcome!
> 
> Tags may change as the story continues.


	2. Chapter Two

It's been three weeks since Eggsy vanished, and the bruising on Rion's face has mostly cleared up. Things have settled down in the estate again, although Rottie likes to bitch about his wrecked car to anyone who stands still for more than four seconds.

Eggsy still hasn't come around or even sent them a message, which doesn't bode well for him. Rion tries not to imagine the nonsense he's probably gotten himself tangled up in now, but one thing is for certain.

Someone has to look after his mum and Daisy.

Rion follows the familiar path to their flat, knocks on the door and waits. Mrs Baker answers, looking worn to the bone. Daisy's crying softly in the background, just under the white noise of the telly.

"Hi, Mrs B," Rion says. "I just came by to say hello."

"Oh, Rion," she says, lips pursing like she's not sure whether or not to smile. "Yes, come in, sweetheart."

The flat's more of a disaster than it normally is. Eggsy hadn't held down a proper job, but he'd always been around and helping out his mum, and the evidence that he's been gone for a while is right in front of her. There's three empty crisp packets by the sofa, and it's unlikely that the floor has seen a vacuum anytime in the last month.

Daisy is in her pen, and Rion leans over the edge to stroke a finger along her smooth little cheek. "Hiya, baby," she croons. She's spent plenty of time watching Daisy with Eggsy, relearning the skills she picked up when Mackenna was born. Daisy still wriggles and fusses, but she starts to quiet down, and Rion can see the way Mrs Baker's shoulders slowly loosen.

"Come on, now," Rion says, taking her by the elbow and guiding her to the sofa. "Sit. Can I make you a cuppa?"

"A cuppa sounds lovely. And make one for you, too, yeah?"

Rion gets the kettle on the stovetop and washes out a couple mugs, then just keeps washing until the drying rack is towering precariously. She pours the hot water into the teapot and gives it a swirl to help the tea steep, tidying away the worst of the kitchen mess before carrying two steaming mugs over to where Mrs Baker has her head tipped back and her eyes shut.

"Here you are," she says, extending one of the mugs.

Mrs Baker takes it and leans her nose over the top. "Bless your heart," she says. "Come and sit. Tell me what's new."

Before Daisy came about, Rion was the closest thing Mrs Baker had to a daughter, because she and Jamal were over with Eggsy whenever they could manage it. Dean hadn't been so bad at the beginning, hadn't minded the three of them crowding around the telly or sneaking the occasional beer out of his fridge, and so the Baker flat had been their preferred place to hang out.

They spend a lot of time at the Black Prince and Jamal's, these days.

The tea isn't anything special, but it's warm and soothing, and Rion finds herself patting Mrs Baker on the knee like she's the adult in this situation. "Listen," she says softly, feeling fairly certain that Dean is nowhere in the flat. "Do you have any idea where Eggsy's run off to?"

Mrs Baker's face crumples, and she shakes her head. "You ain't heard from him, neither?" she asks, voice just as quiet. "I thought for sure..."

"Not a thing," Rion says, because it's probably hard to hear, but she deserves to hear the truth. "Lots of rumours floating around, but nothing concrete. Nothing from him. He's just vanished."

"Dean waved a knife in his face," Mrs Baker says, hushed. Rion's breath catches in her throat. "Wanted to know who that bloke at the pub was. Said he'd kill him if he didn't tell."

A knife. Eggsy's never said anything about Dean and knives before. Always just the back of his hand and clear threats about what might happen to his mum. Dean must've been completely mental.

" _Was_ there someone? People seem to think so, but no one knows who he might be."

"Poodle reckons it was a john, says Eggsy must be..." Mrs Baker hiccups, sets her mug down on the coffee table. "Says he must be sellin' himself to pay for all them fancy clothes he's got."

She's crying, now, silent tears streaming down her face. Rion pats her back, croons soothingly like she might to Daisy, tries to think of something to say.

"I think it's mostly shoplifting," Rion says, because it's better than Mrs Baker thinking her son is bending over for rich men who don't give a fuck about him, who just want to use his arse. "I saw him lift a pair of trackies a few weeks ago." It's not even a lie.

"Oh," Mrs Baker says, and sobs a little harder. A thief instead of a prostitute. It's hardly a happy alternative.

Her crying only serves to set off Daisy, so Rion pulls her out of the pen and bounces her on her knees until the tears turn to watery smiles on both their faces.

"I know that Mr Baker probably doesn't want to see too much of me," Rion says after the snuffles have petered out. "But I know Eggsy did a lot of things for you, with the flat, and Daisy. I wouldn't mind picking up the slack, if you need a hand, sometimes."

Daisy babbles at her and grabs at the necklace around her throat. Mrs Baker watches them both, as Rion untangles her little fingers from the cheap jewellery. 

"I'd love to say yes, sweetheart, but your dad needs you at home."

"Mackenna's old enough to start dinner and wash the dishes after school. She's nine. She's plenty capable. And I'll still be around to help out. Just helpin' you too, is all."

She can't leave Mackenna alone in that apartment with their father for too long. She's a good kid, Mac, quieter and more biddable than Rion ever was, but their dad's temper doesn't always see clearly. He just sees a smaller version of Rion and flares up hot, even if Mackenna's not done anything wrong. If Rion's around, she can take the punishment and spare her sister the worst of it. It's not a forever sort of solution, but it's all she has right now.

She's pretty sure that Mrs Baker knows it. She also certain that Eggsy's mum isn't in much of a position to turn down help, at the moment.

"Maybe a couple times a week," Mrs Baker allows. "Just so I can have a nap."

"Of course. You just let me know when." Rion passes Daisy off to her mother, scoops up their empty mugs and takes them to the sink. She scrapes some leftover food into the bin, puts a couple of Daisy's toys into her pen, and checks the contents of the fridge.

It's mostly empty. 

"You're a gem," Mrs Baker says from behind her. Daisy's perched on her hip, leaning into her mother's warmth. There's a soft hand on her cheek, and then Mrs Baker is kissing her forehead like she's four instead of twenty-four. "You keep safe now, you hear me?"

"I hear you, Mrs B."

***

It's strange, without Eggsy around.

There was one time when he was gone, when he'd joined up with the Marines and started basic. Rion remembers how Mrs Baker tore herself up about it, and how it bothered Eggsy so much that he dropped out and came home.

Rion has never forgiven him for it.

He's strong and he's tough, Eggsy is, and he would've done himself proud in the Marines. Gotten a real job that paid real money, doing something to help the world. Gotten himself out of the shithole they've been born into, met a real nice girl and made a proper life for himself. And instead he'd ended up back where he started, maybe worse off, because now Dean and everybody called him a quitter on top of it all.

But at least then they knew where he was, what he was doing. Knew that he was safe from the likes of Dean and Poodle and Rottie. Knew that good people had his back, that he was getting an education and job experience and all those things that are hard to find in the estate.

She would never tell Mrs Baker, but Rion's concerned that Eggsy has, in fact, turned himself into some sort of rent boy. He's got no job and no place to stay, and it's been a couple months since anyone last heard from him. It's either that or dealing drugs, and Eggsy always did have his nose in a bit of a twist about dealing.

God, she hopes he's not dead.

She doesn't let herself think that he might be dead, that the last thing she ever told him was that he ought to have run over that fox. That the last time she saw him, he was shouting in her face, telling her to get out of the _fucking_ car.

***

Jamal's found a pub a little further away from the estate, The Barge & Squire, because The Black Prince has gotten a little tense for them since Eggsy left. It's only just starting to feel like their regular; they've picked out their favourite table and learned the barman's name.

Except the table is only meant for two, and the barman's never met Eggsy before, so it's still all wrong.

She's got a pint of cheap beer in front of her, sipping it slow to make it last.

"So I've got some good news," Jamal says, idly tracing his finger through the wet ring his drink has left on the tabletop.

"Oh yeah?"

"I got a job."

Rion stares at him, then feels a grin break across her face. "A job! Look at you, hot stuff. Where at?"

"Just the Waitrose down by the tube station," he says, like it's no big deal, but she can see the way his cheeks are reddening.

"But that place is proper fancy," Rion says, half-teasing. "They've got that olive bar and everything. And fresh bread every morning! What do they want with you?"

"Someone to stock the shelves overnight," Jamal says, and Rion feels her heart stumble in her chest.

She lifts her glass anyway, and holds it there until Jamal clinks his against it. "To stocking groceries!" she says, without having to fake enthusiasm for him.

"To stocking groceries," Jamal says with a bit of a groan.

***

Jamal works four days a week at his new job, and sleeps for most of the day. He doesn't try to switch his sleeping schedule even on the days he's not working, because it's too much of a hassle getting himself back on track when he does have to work.

Rion sees him in the mornings, when it's the end of the day for him and she's barely crawled out of bed. Sometimes he has a bottle of beer while she has some tea, but they haven't been down to The Barge & Squire since the night he told her about the job.

She hadn't quite realized that Eggsy and Jamal were her only friends until they were both gone.

She starts going over to the Bakers' flat a little more often, timing it so she never has to run into Dean. Mrs Baker seems glad for the company, and Daisy always brightens up her day. She's such a cheerful child for someone whose life is already on the wrong tracks, but Rion supposes that she doesn't know any better yet.

It'll be worse when Daisy is grown and beat down by life, knowing how happy she was at the start.

Rion sends Mrs Baker off for a nap, puts Daisy in her pen, and gets down on her hands and knees to scrub the kitchen floor. The grime lifts off at a steady pace, turning the soapy water grey in no time. She empties the bucket and fills it again, dunks the sponge and puts her back into it.

The doorknob turns.

Rion sits back on her heels, sponge held to her chest, and watches the door open. Dean's in the frame, staring down at her.

"What're you doing here?" he asks. He doesn't sound quite as angry as she might've expected him to.

"Just helping out," Rion says. The sponge is dripping onto her jeans. "Mrs Baker's having a bit of a lie down."

Dean closes the door behind him and goes to the bedroom. Rion gives the floor one last pass with the sponge to get the worst of the water up, then starts tucking everything away, quick and quiet.

He comes back out a minute later. "Are we paying you?"

"No." She's standing in front of the sink, hands clasped in front of her. Unassuming. Non-threatening.

"Are you done?"

"Nearly," she says, and when he jerks his head, she hurries off into the bathroom to give the faucets and sink a wipe clean.

She slinks out of the flat with a quiet goodbye to Daisy. It's not far to her home, but she stops halfway there and leans into a half-hidden alcove to catch her breath.

He'd threatened Eggsy with a knife.

Threatened to kill him, and then Eggsy had disappeared without a word.

She wonders, briefly and terrifyingly, if maybe Dean had gotten the job done, after all.

Rion takes a deep breath and steps out of the alcove, tucking her hands into the pockets of her jeans so that no one can see the way they shake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping to get a new chapter of this story out every few days, so please subscribe and/or bookmark! Comments always appreciated.


	3. Chapter Three

The thing about Jamal's new job is that he's starting to have actual money in his pocket, and a lot less time to actually spend it.

Not to say that he isn't spending it. He gives his mum a little bit each week to help pay for groceries, because he remember what the free breakfasts at school were like, and doesn't like that his little siblings have to rely on it, too. After three weeks, he buys a new pair of pants to wear to work, and they fit him exactly right, for once.

"This responsible working man stuff looks good on you," Rion says, followed immediately by a yawn over her mug of tea.

"Did you know, I've had three girls chat me up this last week?"

"Makes 'em wet, knowing you've got money," Rion says sagely.

"Hardly any, yet," Jamal says. "But I'm aiming to get another shift, every other week."

They don't talk about how long he's been looking for work. Honest work, the kind he can put on a CV and be proud of. Waitrose is his first real shot at getting somewhere since they graduated secondary nearly six years ago.

Jamal is going to sink his teeth into this stockboy job like a bulldog, and he's not going to let go.

She's sickeningly proud of him.

"And I will be here when you're done work at seven in the morning."

Jamal toasts her with a cup of decaffeinated tea. "Ta," he says.

"But tell me more about the girls," Rion says, leaning forward with interest. "Anyone I know?"

It's an old joke. Everyone knows everyone in the estate, or at least knows of them. Anyone their age, they likely went to school with at some point or another.

"Angela," he says, and that's no real surprise. That girl is a golddigger if ever one existed, and she's got a nose like a Niffler for anyone who might have a little extra cash in their pocket.

"And Maggie."

"Oh, well, she's cute," Rion says thoughtfully. "I always liked Maggie. Nice girl. Who's the last one?"

"Charlotte," Jamal says reluctantly, and Rion howls with laughter.

"J, mate, if you ever go back to that, I will smack you myself."

"I won't!"

"I don't care _what_ she lets you do in bed."

"I'm never telling you anything again."

"Who else are you gonna tell?"

He sulks a little, because he knows she's right.

"You still going 'round the Baker place?"

"Yeah. Three times a week, usually. Keeping Daisy happy and the dishes washed, you know?"

"You're a good sort."

She's honestly not sure if she's as good as Jamal thinks. Most days, she feels like it's all she can do just to keep it together.

***

The days get longer and the sun shines hotter, and Rion toys with the idea of running her own CV around town. There's not much to do, with both Eggsy and Jamal away, and she finds herself spending most of her time either with Mrs B or at home, by herself.

Mackenna isn't even much company, because she's still attending school. Rion tries to make some time with her at the end of the day, sitting at their kitchen table and working over her maths problems and spelling words. Sometimes she has to read over the instructions a couple of times just to re-teach herself something she hasn't used in ten years, but it means Mackenna sometimes comes home with quizzes marked up with a grade she can be proud of. Rion sticks her best quizzes to the fridge with a bit of tape.

When they're done with Mackenna's homework, Rion takes her out of the flat and shows her around town, the safer spots for a girl her age, and where to avoid. It's an important life lesson and gets them out from under their dad's nose at the same time, so she feels pretty good about it.

"Rion," Mac says one day, when they're leaning against a bridge railing. The creek underneath isn't particularly impressive, but it's a little bit of nature in their concrete lives.

"Yes, dove."

"How come you ain't got a boyfriend?"

"Why haven't I got," Rion corrects. "And a girl doesn't always need a boyfriend, you know."

Mackenna is nine and starting to pay attention to her surroundings. Most of the girls Rion's age have got someone, whether or not he's properly locked down. The last serious boyfriend that Rion had was when she was fifteen, which means it wasn't nearly as serious as she thought it was.

"Dad says you scare them all off."

Rion scoffs. "Since when does he care what I do?"

Chances are, she thinks, he's had enough of paying her way and putting her up in his home, and he wants her out. And, not incorrectly, he thinks the fastest way that might happen is if she shacks up with some bloke.

Rion leans her forearms against the railing and looks down at the trickling water below them. "Listen here, Mac," she says, and her sister looks up at her with wide eyes. "We've got to stick together, you and me. Nobody you can trust like your own sister. And that means I'm sticking around, make sure you do your homework and eat your greens."

"And to make sure Dad doesn't hit me," Mac says, face calm and voice even.

"Yeah," Rion says, and drapes an arm over her sister's shoulders to pull her close. "That too."

They stand and watch the water run its slow course to freedom until the sun starts to set, and then they walk home.

***

Her CV, when she puts it together, is pathetic.

The local library isn't much to speak of, but they have computers that are free to use, and she can print off black-and-white copies for five pence each. Besides that, she's also free of her dad breathing down her neck, wondering what she's up to.

Best not to get his hopes up, anyway.

There's hardly enough to fill half a page, even when she bumped the font size up just a little. Her high school credentials were listed, but already five years out of date. Two little jobs she held down when she was still a teenager, working at a couple different corner shops for no longer than it took for the manager to get handsy in one, and for the second to fire her when someone else was willing to work for cheaper.

She’d listed child-care and cooking under the short list of ‘special skills,’ because looking after Mackenna and Daisy has to count for something, and she's been working in her family's kitchen for as long as she could remember.

It isn't much. It's hardly anything at all, but it's what she has.

She prints out forty copies and hands her two quid over to the librarian at the desk, then tucks the small stack of papers into the satchel she’d dragged out of her closet that morning. It had still had a dull pencil and a half-filled notebook with her chemistry notes, long forgotten from the end of school.

There isn't much good work close by to the estate, so Rion walks a large circle around it, nothing further than a half hour's walk directly from her home. But walking the circumference, particularly since she stopped every couple blocks to drop off another CV, takes most of the day.

No doubt most of them had been binned the moment she stepped back out the door. But something had to come of one of those sheets of paper.

She has one left, held back in a moment of shame and discomfort. Rion thinks maybe she'll tuck it aside, wait a while to see how her work today shakes out, and then maybe she'll pass it along to Jamal to take to his boss. It isn't the best feeling, having to beg for a job from her friend because she can't find one on her own, but there's that saying about beggars and choosers.

Her feet are sore from travelling so far in her best shoes, which are still a little ratty around the toes. She'd dug into the back of her closet for a shirt that had once belonged to her mother, old enough to almost be vintage, but was mostly just dated. It was sadly still nicer than most of the clothing she owned, because there wasn't a lot of reason to wear fancy dress around the estate.

Mac is sitting out on the front stoop when she comes up, scuffing her soles against the worn concrete. "Hello, miss," Rion says cheerfully as she gets closer, but then Mac raises her head and Rion can see the streaks of tears down her face, and the way her face is starting to puff up on one side. "Oh, sweetheart," Rion says. She tosses her bag down on the ground and crouches in front of her sister.

Quiet, gentle Mac lets Rion tip her face up with two fingers under her chin. Mac sniffles just a little, then leans into her touch. The concrete is cold and unforgiving under her knees, but Rion stays kneeling between her sister's feet and holds her close to her chest.

She thinks maybe she won't give Jamal her CV after all.

***

It's nearly a week later when Jamal finally gets more than one day off in a row, and it's just in time to hear Richmond Valentine's announcement about free phone calls and internet forever. The two of them sit and stare at Jamal's phone for a long minute, and then he silently hits the replay button so they can watch the video again.

"There's no way," Rion says once they've gotten to the end again.

"It can't possibly be profitable. It has to lose money," Jamal says, eyebrows drawing together as he tries to puzzle it out.

Rion looks at the little picture of Valentine, decked out in crisp whites and a perfectly fresh cap like always. "I'm getting one," she announces.

"The SIM card? Hell yes," Jamal says. "Me, too."

***

They get in line the afternoon the cards are released. It's a good thing there's so many places that sell mobiles, because the store they stop at has a queue that stretches clear down the street.

There's another queue just as long only a block away.

It feels like the whole damn city is queued up for their free internet.

Rion honestly doesn't know what's in it for Valentine, but she's not going to look this gift horse in the mouth too closely. She doesn't have data on her phone as it is, because it's so ridiculously expensive, only minutes and unlimited texting. She is chuffed at the idea that she might have the world at her fingertips without having to trek down to the library in the first place.

It won't be a lot of money she saves on her phone bill, but it's enough to maybe buy some new clothes for her and Mackenna once in a while, or they might be able to go see one of those animated films that Mac always looks at longingly when they show the adverts on the telly.

It's not a lot, but it might be enough to make them a little bit happier.

There's more than one familiar face waiting to get inside, and Rion smiles. "Hi, Mrs B," she says with a wave. 

"Here for your card?" she asks. Daisy is in her stroller, and Rion can't help but notice the way she's getting so big. Eggsy would be devastated to see her, to see all the things he's missed these past few months.

"Mmhmm," Rion says, and then they're saying goodbye and finding their place at the end before it stretches all the way around the corner.

The two of them spend all afternoon creeping slowly towards the door. It's a relief to finally reach the counter, where four frazzled employees are fighting a computer system that's struggling under the load from all its stores doing the exact same thing, and working around a small mountain of boxes with the Valentine SIMs inside. Rion plasters a polite smile on her face and hands her phone over to have the new SIM card installed, and then the smile isn't fake anymore when she realizes she can actually use the internet on her phone.

Together, she and Jamal step back out into the sunshine, and Rion thinks that maybe things are looking up, for once.


	4. Chapter Four

The thing about having the internet in her pocket all the time is that Rion is suddenly up-to-date with the latest news.

Her phone is kind of ancient, and it loses its charge much faster than it has any reason to, but she finds herself glued nose-to-tiny-screen as things get worse and worse.

She watches as celebrities and academics and politicians start to disappear without a word, a new one every few days. The Swedish Prime Minister declares passionately that they're doing everything they can to find Princess Tilde, the lithe blonde who shows up in the British papers once in a while because she's done something a little scandalous while looking effortlessly brilliant.

Rion thinks Tilde might be loads of fun, as a friend, even if she is a princess.

It's hard to keep track of everyone who's gone missing, but the BBC is tallying it around three hundred people over the course of four months. Some celebrities refuse to go out without half a dozen bodyguards, and keep their mansions on total lockdown when they're at home.

And then a couple more disappear even surrounded by hired guards, and it only makes everyone more nervous.

There doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason for the disappearances. Actors, singers, politicians, professors, businessmen and inventors all vanish without a trace. People with money and power and influence and no other linking characteristics. Some people are reported missing and then magically turn up again two days later, fine as rain and without any kind of story to tell.

It's worrisome, of course it is, but Rion doesn't have the luxury of fretting about what might happen to the royal family or the cast of Sherlock when she's pressed up against the living room wall, her dad nearly spitting in her face with rage. She'd been coaching Mac on using the oven, the simple task of sliding a pot pie in and taking it back out again an hour later, and Mac had bumped her arm against a hot edge.

Her frightened wail had woken the monster in the next room, and before there was time to wrap some ice in a teatowel, there had been a fist in her hair, and pain blooms in her shoulder where she's run straight into the wall.

There's irony, she thinks distantly, in that he's hurting her for letting her sister get hurt. Funny how he's the only one allowed to hurt them.

Mac isn't screaming in the background, which means she's skittered off to their room and probably tucked herself under the bed with her injured arm clutched close. It's the best place for her to be, if Rion can keep her dad's attention solely on her.

She swallows her pride and then mouths off, once, twice, just enough to really piss him off and get him going, and Rion can deal with the way her face is going to puff up if it means that Mac stays safe between her blankets with only a little burn for her trouble.

***

The alarm on Rion's phone goes off at seven o'clock, because she's meant to be making sure Mac is getting herself to school. She fights to open her eyes past the grit that seems stuck in-between her lashes, but then Mac's small hands are patting at her shoulder.

"I've got my rucksack and my lunch, and my homework is all done." She says it soft but quick, like she doesn't have a lot of time. 

Rion cracks one eye open, takes in the simple ponytail and a shirt that doesn't look too wrinkled. "Good. Straight home after school."

"I will. I brought you some water if you need it," Mac says, her voice accompanied by the clink of the glass hitting the nightstand. "Feel better."

Rion's asleep again before the front door closes.

***

She gets up at ten, long enough to pee and drink her glass of water. The kitchen is still a wreck from the night before, and it's a miracle her dad remembered to turn off the damn oven before he burned their whole complex to the ground. The flat is quiet, which means he's off at work, hanging off the side of London's office buildings, cleaning windows. It's a sweet relief, to have him gone.

Rion takes ten minutes to sit with a cool, damp towel over her face before she gets to work.

The uneaten dinner that sat out all night goes in the bin. It's a shameful waste of food, and it reminds Rion that she probably should eat even if she's not hungry. She pokes at the meagre offerings in the fridge. It's hard to tell, based on what's there, if Mackenna managed to get something to eat at all last night.

There's a bit of cereal in the cupboard that she softens with a splash of milk so she can swallow it down easily.

She takes a shower after the worst of the damage has been erased, soaking her sore muscles as best she can under the spray. Her reflection in the mirror afterward isn't much to look at. Rion brushes her teeth without putting too much pressure on her swollen bottom lip and tries not to meet her own gaze.

There's nothing else to do and she's bone-tired. Rion falls back into the mess of her sheets and curls up, and falls back asleep.

***

She's floating in that space between sleep and wakefulness when the front door opens.

Rion isn't particularly concerned. She knows those footsteps, and she knows the sound of Mac's bag being slung onto a nearby chair. Their bedroom door creaks open and Mac pokes her head in, looking worried.

"Hey, sweetheart," Rion says, and Mac rushes over to crawl into bed with her.

They tangle their legs together and pull the blanket over their heads, a leftover from when they were both younger. It's a comfort thing now, a little den where it's only the two of them, shut off from the rest of the world.

Mac peers at her face in the dim light but doesn't make a move to touch it. "You're going to have a bruise," she says sorrowfully. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Rion says. "It's not your fault."

"I burned myself."

"It was an accident. How's your arm, by the way?"

"It's fine," Mac says, getting defensive, but Rion sees how she tucks her arm out of sight.

"Not your fault," Rion says again. "It's on dad."

Mac doesn't say anything, but there's guilt and shame written all over her face. Rion shimmies closer to her and wraps an arm around her waist.

"We're going to be okay, you and me. You'll see."

***

Mac must not have slept well the night before, and paired with a full day at school, she falls right asleep in Rion's bed. Rion dozes a little more herself before carefully hoisting herself over Mac's prone form to get up.

Her jaw cracks with a yawn as she stumbles to the bathroom. She fights to keep her eyes open while she sits on the toilet, and then it's not a fight at all, because there's a shriek and the squeal of tires from outside the window, and then a drawn-out scream.

Her jeans and panties are around her knees, which means she awkwardly scrambles to her feet and rushes to the living room, where she pushes the curtains aside to look out.

There's a souped-up car that she vaguely recognizes as belonging to one of the lads down the way, and it's crunched up against the side of the next building over. Pinned between the hood and the wall is Mellie Wilson, who was two years ahead of Rion in school.

The car has driven straight into her legs, and Mellie is wailing with pain.

Rion has already started to let go of the curtains with the intent of racing out the door when the driver gets out of the car, baseball bat in hand.

She jerks back from the window after the first blow lands straight across Mellie's face.

She thinks she can hear another one land, then another one.

Mellie isn't screaming anymore.

Rion darts into the bedroom and scrabbles through the clothes on the floor, looking for her phone. It takes her far too long to find it, and she makes enough noise that Mac wakes up and stares down at her from where she lays on the mattress.

"What's going on?"

"Go lock the front door, sweetheart." When her sister pauses, Rion shouts. "Now!"

Mac positively flies.

Her sister screeches a moment later, which means she's probably looked out the window and seen Mellie and the car. "Rion!" she wails.

Her fingers finally close around her mobile, and she hits the home button only to be faced with a black screen. "Goddammit!" The fucking thing is fucking dead.

Mac is back in their doorway, face pale and body trembling.

It takes her another minute to find the charger, and even when she plugs her phone in, it refuses to boot up right away. Rion makes sure the window in their bedroom is locked up and the curtains drawn across it, then huddles with Mac as they wait for her mobile to boot up.

It's too quiet outside, no sirens or voices. And then suddenly, "Oh, fuck. Oh my god, what the _fuck!"_

She recognizes his voice all of a sudden. His name is Nathan, and he worked nights cleaning retail stores for two years in order to pay for that damn car. 

Rion creeps towards the window and peers carefully outside, and promptly wishes she hadn't.

The front end of the car is a mess. It would be bad enough if it had simply driven into a brick wall, but it had driven into a brick wall with a body in-between, so the crumpled bonnet is coated in blood. Nathan is several steps away but staring, like he can't bear to get any closer, one hand in his hair and the other covering his mouth.

He jerks away a moment later and heaves up his lunch on the curb.

Rion drops the edge of the curtain and clamps both hands over her mouth. Is she meant to call the police? Maybe someone else already has. She certainly has no intention of stepping outside and letting Nathan know she saw what happened.

Not like anyone isn't going to know when they see that car, though.

"Rion," Mac stage-whispers from the door of their bedroom. "It's still not turning on."

She's barely three steps away from the window when someone howls with pain outside.

"In the bedroom!" Rion hisses to her sister, following her in and shutting the door behind them both. It's adrenaline and panic that makes her grab her bedframe and haul her single bed so it blocks off the door, blankets rumpling as they get dragged past the wall. "Get under your bed," Rion says, and Mac doesn't need another second of encouragement before she's wiggling her way into the narrow space.

There's nowhere else to hide, unless Rion fancies trying to climb into the rickety armoire. The only weapon-like thing in the room is the ceramic lamp on their nightstand, and when Rion ducks down to unplug it, she realizes that the other end of her charger is loose.

It's probably too late now, but she pushes the plug in flush and sees the red light on her phone start to blink.

She doesn't have to strain her ears to hear the dull thuds and the shouting outside. It sounds like there's more people now, like they're brawling in the streets, and then suddenly.

Nothing.

Rion sits, lamp in hand, and tries to remember how to breathe when she hears the first heart-wrenching cry.


	5. Chapter Five

It's chaos.

Barely two minutes after the noise outside changes from physical to emotional pain, Rion's phone blinks to life.

Mac stays under her bed while Rion peers out the front window again, and gags at the sight.

Her little sister is left in the flat with the door locked while Rion steps outside onto the concrete balcony.

There's blood everywhere.

Mellie isn't the only casualty in the estates that day. Three guys lay motionless in the street, and the ones who remain standing seem half in shock. People start to pour out of their flats, and some of them have blood streaked up their arms or dripping from their faces.

No police come, or ambulances either. No one can seem to get through to emergency services.

Rion thinks she might be in shock, but she goes back into the flat long enough to fetch their haphazard first aid kit, and goes back outside. She gives people towels to press against open wounds, and puts plasters over the more minor cuts. 

She only has enough supplies to tape up four people, and every single one of them is completely blank-faced while she does so.

She doesn't talk to Nathan, who is sitting next to the mess that used to be Mellie. Her first aid kit doesn't let her get any further than four units down from her own door, and then she's down to a handful of cotton balls. But Sarah from three doors down has bloody welts where fingernails dragged across her face, and her mother's left eye is puffy in a way that promises to bloom into a black eye. Rion carefully swipes antibacterial squares over Sarah's knuckles before covering them with bandages. Sarah's mother picks thoughtlessly at the blood and skin that's gathered under her nails.

Rion stays long enough to help who she can, and then finds herself standing at the railing, looking down at the mess below.

It doesn't make any sense. Violence isn't a stranger in the estate, not with so many low-incomes families in such close quarters, but such a high degree of it so concentrated is completely unheard of. Never all at once.

And then people start talking.

There was a noise, everyone agrees, this odd sound that seemed to float in the back of their head. And nothing else seemed important, nothing else but lashing out at the nearest person as hard as they could.

Sarah seems puzzled that Rion didn't hear a thing.

"That odd buzzing," she says. "Really? You didn't hear it at all?"

"We heard the car crash," Rion says, gesturing down to the wreckage below. 

It's a maddening puzzle, and they don't know how to solve it.

***

Rion brings their emptied kit back into the flat, rubs Mac's back soothingly and puts her to bed. It's not until she hears her sister's breathing go slow and deep that she picks up her mobile and makes a call.

She's been waiting anxiously, waiting until Mac is asleep just in case no one picks up, or someone picks up with bad news.

But the phone rings four times and then Jamal is answering at the other end, and Rion's breath escapes her in a rush of relief. 

"Oh God," she says, and then she's crying down the line at him.

"You're okay?" Jamal asks, and there's just as much worry laced in his voice as there is in her head. "And Mac?"

"We're both fine. Whatever happened, we managed to escape it."

"You're lucky," Jamal says, and suddenly she knows that Jamal sunk his big fists into someone earlier that day. There's a long, quiet moment where she wonders if she ought to pry, but can't bring herself to form the words.

Did you kill them? Did you snap back to reality while they were still breathing, and watch them die with a clear mind? Was it someone you were friends with?

There's hardly a good way to ask that sort of thing.

"Where are you now?"

"Home," Jamal says wearily. "None of the buses were running, so I walked. Did you go anywhere today?" When Rion hums in the negative, he says, "Good. I swear, around every corner was something worse. I almost didn't want to come home, just in case..."

"Everyone's okay?"

"A bit rough around the edges, but they'll be alright."

It's the most they can ask for, it seems.

***

Rion is five minutes away from tucking herself into bed, exhausted but mind still racing, when she realizes that her dad is long overdue to come home. He goes out to the bar some nights, the ones where he doesn't just drink in front of the telly, and she hadn't thought overly much about his absence.

But then it's eleven and he's still not back.

She texts him and gets no reply, then tries calling, and gets an automated message saying his mobile is off. It takes twenty minutes to dig through the papers stuffed in a drawer in his bedroom before she finds something with his employer's phone number.

The woman on the other end of the line sounds just as tired as she is.

"Jack Cassidy," Rion says. "He had a shift today. Do you know...?"

The woman knows. Jack Cassidy and another man had been twenty floors up in their lift when it happened.

The thing about being suspended twenty floors into the sky to clean windows means there isn't a lot of room to move once punches start being thrown, and only one place to go if a foot goes off the platform.

When Rion hands up the phone, she doesn't cry. She's not sure if it's shock, or if she'll never cry for her father at all.

***

Mackenna cries.

Rion lets her sleep through the night, although she forgoes sleeping in her own bed and squishes herself in next to her sister, where she lies awake until sunbeams start to poke past their curtains. She tries to figure out what might happen to them now that their father is gone, when Rion doesn't have a job and no way to provide for them.

Mackenna cries when Rion tells her as gently as she can that their daddy isn't coming home anymore. They sit together for a long time, hugging each other tight.

Rion doesn't know if it makes her a bad person that she's glad he's gone, and that Mac was spared the worst of everything. She would happily trade her father a hundred times over to spare her sister any pain at all.

Mac is still red around the eyes as Rion convinces her to put her shoes on, and finds her backpack with her homework still unfinished inside. She takes a few steps out their front door to take a look around, and then promptly turns back around and tells Mac she's not going to school today.

She sets Mac up at their table with her maths problems, then changes into a pair of overly-worn jeans and goes back outside. There's already some people out, cleaning up property damage or scrubbing at brown stains that dried overnight. Sarah from three doors down is on her hands and knees, working furiously at a blood splatter on the stairs.

"Need some help?" Rion offers, standing a little ways away. Sarah jerks her head up but doesn't quite meet Rion's gaze.

"No, I'm fine," she says, and gets back to work.

The next two people Rion encounters prefer to work solitary as well, before she finds an older woman who hands her a bristly brush and points at something on the wall that Rion would rather not identify.

"Can't get down low with these old knees," the old lady says, and Rion wonders for a half-second how this woman survived something that so many people didn't, when she remembers that Mrs Marshall has lived on her own for ages ever since her husband died of an over-worked liver.

She spends three hours cleaning up a mess that never seems to end, but their corner of the world looks a little better for it, by the time Rion lifts her head and realizes her stomach is crying out for lunch. Mac has long been finished her homework, and Rion finds her parked in front of the telly, watching the news instead of cartoons.

The news anchor doesn't look nearly as put-together as she usually does; her hair clearly hasn't been handled by a professional, and her makeup doesn't quite cover the bruise on her jawline. The spot where her co-anchor normally sits, a jolly man who was clearly a rugby player in his former life, is empty.

"We warn viewers that some of these images are quite graphic," she says, and the bags under her eyes say that she's seen some of these things up close.

Rion instinctively covers Mac's eyes with her hand the moment the first gruesome view of London displays on the screen, but her sister bats it away impatiently.

"It's practically on loop," she says. "I've already seen this bit three times."

"Why on earth are you still watching it?"

"In case I see someone we know. Or in case they say something new."

They don't say anything new for another two hours, by which point Rion has seen the images at least six times over herself.

She tries to check her phone once, to see if any other news sites have any information, but it doesn't want to connect to the internet.

It won't make calls, either.

"What the hell," Rion mutters, turning it off and on again for the third time, when the news finally deigns to bring them new information.

"We are receiving word that the Valentine network seems to be completely down," the anchor reports, looking almost relieved to be talking about something that has nothing to do with deadly violence. "If you are with a carrier that is still working, please let the people around you know, in case they need to make a call to their families. In hard times such as these, we must remember to help others as much as we can, in order to bring us all out of tragedy together. It is likely that the network has shut down as people are unable to attend work, as is the case for many other shops and companies."

Rion tosses her useless mobile onto the coffee table and regrets ever signing up for Valentine's damn free internet forever.

***

The anchor eventually signs off, and it's the weather girl who takes her place behind the big desk. Rion watches her well into the night, her mouth forming the same words saying the same things.

No one's quite certain what happened.

No one's quite certain why it stopped.

No one's quite certain what's going to happen next, only that they must all keep their lips stiff and their hearts compassionate.

Rion and Mac drift off to sleep wrapped around each other on the couch. Rion thinks she might never let her sister go again.


	6. Chapter Six

It takes about a week for Rion to contact everyone who really matters; her aunt in Liverpool, a cousin in Paris, Mrs Baker and Daisy down the way. It’s not until she finds out that Mr Baker survived the bloodbath unscathed that she realizes she was sort of hoping that the fights had taken out the worst of everyone.

Little Daisy Baker isn’t getting the same relief that Rion is.

Five days after everything, Rion and Mac are sitting in the Bakers' living room. Mac is sitting on the floor with Daisy, piling up blocks and letting the toddler knock them over with glee.

Mrs B pours Rion a cup of tea and hands it to her with a shaky grip.

“I got a call,” she says quietly, to avoid drawing Mackenna’s attention.

Rion stirs a bit of sugar into her cup and leans her nose over it. “Oh?” Wary. Everyone’s been getting calls lately, good and bad both. About people who survived and those who didn’t. About people who survived and then couldn't live with themselves in the aftermath.

“Some girl I didn’t know. Right before the fights broke out. She told me to lock Daisy in the bathroom and get away from her.”

Rion’s cup jerks, and she nearly spills the hot tea over her lap. “Before?”

“Like she knew what was going to happen. Only a couple minutes before it all happened. And then I lost my mind and started trying to bang the door down, and I know that…” Mrs Baker sniffs, looks away. Rion fishes a tissue out of the box on the end table and hands it to her. “Thanks, luv. Anyway, she saved Daisy’s life, that girl.”

“You haven’t told Mr Baker, have you?” Rion asks, even though she’s certain she knows the answer.

Mrs B dabs at her eyes, then delicately wipes at her nose. Sometimes, Rion can see a glimpse of what she must have been like, years ago, before living in the estate, before her husband died. A real proper sort of woman, who cared for her son and got her hair tidily cut, instead of the cheap dye-jobs she does now herself, over the tub.

“No, of course not. He’d ask all sorts of questions. But I think, I think maybe Eggsy told her to call.”

There’s not really a good reason to think so, except for the fact that who else would be looking out to protect little Daisy like that? 

“But why wouldn’t he call himself?”

Neither one of them has an answer for that, and Rion lets the question hang unanswered between them, as they watch the girls play on the floor.

***

There are a lot of businesses that need to hire new employees, and a lot of places will simply never open again. All the data that big businesses had on how many man-hours a week were needed are suddenly wildly wrong, and people are pulling long shifts or barely working, depending on how hard they were hit. Stores that have enough people to work don't have any product to sell, because their distributors are simply gone. People who were part-time a week ago are suddenly managers, because there’s simply no one else to do the job.

Jamal is promoted to supervisor at Waitrose, and gets a nifty new apron and a raise to go with it. His hours are cut to a third of his previous time, because there's just no new product to stock and sell. He says that people are going mad trying to stock up on whatever they can get their hands on, and that they've had to put limitations on basically everything. He's half-supervisor and half-bouncer, because he has to break up fights over things like the last carton of eggs or an 18-pack of tampons.

Rion hears that the funeral homes are all bursting at the seams. No one is equipped to deal with so many deaths, all at once. The caskets are all long gone, and it's just an endless line-up out the door for cremation.

Oh, how the world has burned.

***

The library hasn’t reopened yet, but Rion walks around to a few different shops and leaves them her name and address. It’s strange, how the Valentine Corporation network falls apart completely, while the other networks manage to stay somewhat functioning, albeit a little spotty with coverage sometimes. Some people say that it just goes to show Valentine was in it all for the publicity stunt, and not to help those in need, because his system was so shoddily built Some people wonder why he hasn’t made a public statement about it, but Rion figures he must’ve been taken out by his bodyguards during the violence.

It’s strange. Two weeks ago, if she had tried to get hired without a resume and without a phone number, she would have been laughed out of the store. Now, the woman behind the desk jots down quick directions to the estate on the paper with Rion’s personal information.

“Who knows?” the woman says darkly. “Could be the internet next.”

Rion stops by the Baker flat on her way home, to pick up Daisy for babysitting. Dean Baker, the knob-headed idiot, had barely let the violence affect him. A week after it all, he was determined to be holding court at the Black Prince, as always.

His court is a little smaller than usual, but Mr Baker is determined to show no weakness, queen at his side.

Of course, little Daisy isn’t much welcomed at the pub when the lads are all boasting and getting a little too drunk, and so Mrs Baker quietly asks Rion to take her for the night. It’s entirely likely that Dean will come back completely loaded, and Daisy always fusses at the noise. 

So the adults go drinking, and Rion carries Daisy back to her flat for a sleepover.

***

The baby is sleeping in the middle of Rion’s bed, a wall of blankets keeping her from rolling off the side. Mac and Rion watch telly quietly on the other side of the wall. The public is anxious for new information about what happened and what is going to happen, but there’s almost never anything new to say.

There was nothing that would have kept Rion so enthralled with the news cycle at that age, but then, the world’s population didn’t take a 10% plummet when she was nine, either.

They’re thinking about making a late dinner with whatever they can assemble out of the cupboards when there’s a knock on the door.

“Some dried beans,” Mac says, from where her head is hidden from view. “Crushed tomatoes. Can we make a chili?”

“We don’t have any minced beef,” Rion says, because they haven’t had minced beef in weeks.

She’s expecting it to be Mrs Baker on the stoop, and she’s not wrong.

She’s not expecting some posh bloke to be standing at her shoulder, or that posh bloke’s face to suddenly sharpen into Eggsy’s features as she stares at him.

“What,” Rion says.

“Hello, Rion,” posh-Eggsy says. It doesn’t even sound like him, anymore. She doesn't think this man has sworn a day in his life.

“Hello, Rion,” Mrs Baker says, gently. “May we come in?”

Her feet shuffle to the side before she quite realizes what she’s doing. “Daisy’s just…” she says helplessly, then turns her back and disappears into the bedroom.

She hears Mac’s exclamation of delight at seeing Eggsy, her long-held childish crush rising fast and furious to the forefront. The chair had been standing on squeals across the floor, as she likely leaps off of it so she can hug him hello.

Rion wishes she could forgive him so easily.

She stands next to her bed and looks down at the sleeping toddler for a long moment, before sliding her hands underneath her warm body and cuddling her close to her chest.

“Love you, Daisy-darling,” she murmurs into the child’s fly-away hair.

Rion doesn’t miss the way that Eggsy’s throat jumps when he sees his baby sister, no longer such a baby. Daisy is still mostly-asleep in her arms, and Rion makes the conscious decision to let her go and pass her off to the mysterious, suited stranger.

“Oh, hello, Daisy,” Eggsy says, soft and fond, just as her eyes flutter open and she focuses on him.

Her little mouth screws up in concern, because she’s not a fan of being held by strangers, and she was just an infant when Eggsy left. She’s a half-breath away from letting out a proper wail when Mrs Baker scoops her out of his grasp, and cuddles the girl back into contentment.

Eggsy’s face nearly collapses.

“I’ll get her bag, then, yeah?” Rion says, and busies herself gathering up Daisy’s things.

She’s spent so long waiting for Eggsy to contact her, for him to show up on her doorstep just like this. She never expected that he might show up and have become a totally different person.

He looks like the sort of person who might scowl at her on the tube, or watch her suspiciously in a store, like she’s bound to lift something at any second. He looks like someone who’s never struggled a day in his life, who hones his physique in a private gym and knows what everything means on a menu full of French words.

He doesn’t look like Eggsy, anymore. He looks like a Gary.

Except a posh bloke from the right part of town probably wouldn’t give a shit about the whimpering girl in her mother’s arms, dressed in second-hand clothes from Oxfam that don't fit her quite right. He wouldn't close his eyes as Mrs Baker cradles his cheek in her hand even as she shushes her daughter.

Rion zips the bag shut and holds it out awkwardly towards the little family. "Thank you," Mrs Baker says, grateful and sad all at once.

"Suppose I won't be needing to watch her anymore, yeah?"

Mrs Baker glances at her son. "I don't think we're going to be so close by," she says carefully.

Good for Eggsy. Whatever nonsense he's clearly gotten himself into, he obviously thinks it's safe enough to bring his mother and Daisy to wherever he's been living. She hopes it means that Mrs Baker might be leaving her husband, because Rion just can't imagine Dean living off his stepson's charity, or that Eggsy would be willing to pay for him to laze about all day.

Rion pastes a bright smile on her face. "I'm glad you're okay," she tells Eggsy, who looks mildly startled.

"You, too," he says, and quirks a little grin at Mac, who blushes at the attention. "And you, of course."

She steps forward to chuck Daisy under her chubby chin, purses her mouth into a funny shape to make the girl laugh, and accepts a hug from Mrs Baker around Daisy's little body.

"You've been a godsend, luv," Mrs Baker says into her ear. "You let me know if I can ever pay you back."

"I will," Rion says, with zero intention of ever calling in the favour.

Eggsy ushers them out of the flat, and Rion stands in the doorway with her arms wrapped around herself to watch them make their way to a black cab, the kind of car that's clearly from a private hire. Mrs Baker helps Daisy wave at her through the window, and Rion waggles her fingers back as the car disappears around the corner.

It's nearly twenty minutes later when Mac steps out the door as well, and finds her sitting on the freezing concrete, red-eyed but no longer crying.


	7. Chapter Seven

"He was here?"

Jamal rubs at his forehead with two fingers, closes his eyes, then opens them again to look at her.

"Just for a few minutes," Rion repeats, because it doesn't seem to be sinking in.

"In a _suit._ "

"Poshest damn suit I've ever seen walk into the estate." Definitely nicer than any of the CPS suits that’ve walked these rows. No money in that job. Sometimes they look hardly better-off than the people who are under review.

"And the Bakers..."

"I don't know. Gone, maybe. Probably not Dean, but Mrs Baker and Daisy, yeah."

Jamal sits heavily on one of the rickety kitchen chairs. There’s only the creak of its old legs in the silence of the flat, as they breathe together and try to fit this new information into their world view.

It would have been one thing, to find out that Eggsy was scraping by on the streets, unwilling or unable to spare a bit of change to make a call from one of the few phone booths left in service. It’s something else to see him in perfectly creased trousers, standing a little taller and a little prouder, having not called them because he didn’t _want_ to.

“Good for him,” Jamal says eventually, into the quiet. “Good for him.”

He almost sounds like he means it.

Rion thinks that, given some time, she might be able to mean it as well.

***

Rion sleeps poorly that night, laying in bed and turning over the image of a new Eggsy in her head. The specs were new. She was nearly certain that he didn't need them; he'd never squinted or complained that he couldn't read something. He definitely hadn’t needed them for the Marines, where he couldn’t have shot well with bad eyes. A fashion statement, then, from the boy who pretended he'd never read a book in his life.

She’d been there when Eggsy had first started wearing snapbacks, started buffing his trainers until they shone, even when they were nearly worn through. She’d watched him cycle through a number of wildly different styles when they were teenagers, but she had never seen him try on anything like that suit, before.

Maybe it was the money that he so clearly had access to, now. Maybe Eggsy had always liked the trim lines of neat suits, but had never been able to afford it, never had a reason to need it, in their little concrete jungle. It’s not like he could lift himself a suit off the rack at Marks & Sparks that fit him so well across the shoulders.

When she checks her mobile, the screen reads 1:24am. Her body is exhausted, but her mind just won't let her rest.

When she checks again, and it now says 2:15, Rion pushes herself out of bed. She's used to navigating their little room in the dark, and she fishes out a pair of ratty shorts from their closet while Mac sleeps soundly with her mouth dropped open.

She thinks she manages a couple of restless hours out on the couch before the sun comes beaming through the curtains.

Looking after Daisy had been one constant in a world where everything had been flipped on its head. One thing that hadn’t changed, in the ‘after’ that was always compared to the ‘before.’ Not even the most certain of certainties for children has gone unaffected; Mac only goes to school three days out of the week now, because there aren’t enough teachers to go around. Not nearly as many students either, but it’s just too hard to get everything running like it should.

Stores aren’t open as late. The grocery store is still mostly empty. They’re selling as much fresh produce as they can, because all the supply lines to manufacturers have fallen apart, and no one seems to be able to get a new can of soup made anywhere.

It’s been a crash course in a new type of lifestyle, for everyone.

Rion drags herself vertical again when she hears Mac banging around in their room. Neither one of them has broached the topic of actually using the second bedroom, the one with their father’s clothes still in the dresser and the bedsheets folded down on one side. Neither one of them would be comfortable in his space.

Rion thinks she’d rather move than settle down to sleep in that double bed, and she can’t bear to throw more upheaval into their life on top of everything else.

She fries them each a couple of eggs and washes the plates with a carefully-measured dollop of cleaning liquid. There’s only a quarter of the bottle left, and then after that, she’s not sure how they’re going to manage.

They’re running low on a lot of things.

She’s running low on hope.

It’s been a year since Eggsy disappeared, since they whipped down the streets in Rottie’s stupid yellow car before they smashed it straight into a pile of shit. She can’t remember the last time she felt like that, dangerously alive, cheeks hurting from laughter in the face of responsibility and the law. It’s not that Eggsy leaving scared her straight, or any of that bullshit, but things just don’t seem right without him around. That was all.

She’s tired, and there’s the start of an exhaustion headache building at the space where her nose meets her eyebrows, but Rion smiles at Mac when her sister bounds out of the bedroom and plunks herself down at the table.

The headache hasn’t left for weeks, only ebbs and flows as she watches their meagre savings slip through her fingers.

***

There isn’t a lot to do, on the days when Rion doesn’t go to work and Mac doesn’t go to school. Sometimes Rion takes the broom outside and picks a corner, and starts sweeping. The government (what’s left of it) is trying to organize clean-up across the country. It’s not likely that they’re going to reach the estate anytime soon, if ever, and her sister has to play here in the meantime. Sometimes they go to visit Jamal, or one of Mac’s friends.

Sometimes they go for a walk.

It’s a nice enough day that Rion tucks an old plastic bag into her pocket and herds her sister out the door. It’s getting cold again, and it’s only the work of minutes to find those old ratty mittens that she nearly threw out last year, just because they didn’t fit her style.

The sleeves of Mac’s coat are getting a bit short, but there’s nothing to do for that, right now.

Even if everything is still all gone to shit, Rion tries to take Mac out of the estate every once in awhile, to remind her what else is out there. It’s a reminder to her, too, to keep working hard so that her sister might have the chances she never did. Mac is a good girl, but she won’t stay that way unless she has a reason to, and Rion doesn’t want to hear, five years down the road, that the reason Mac comes home out of breath and wild-eyed is because she was running from the coppers for doing the same stupid things Rion always got into.

They stop at every grocery store as they go, seeing who has what available and for how much. Rion fishes the plastic bag out of her pocket when they find a place selling tiny bags of flour, and they switch off carrying it as they take the long way back home. She thinks she can force it into something resembling bread, or maybe pasta with the last of the eggs.

“Rion,” Mac says, slipping her mittened hand into her sister’s and looking up with hopeful eyes. “Can we-”

Her words are cut off when their hands are wrenched apart. Rion shouts and drops the bag of flour, lunging for her sister and the utter fucking asshole who’s just grabbed her in the middle of the street.

Mac’s shrieking and yelling, and Rion hollers right along with her, trying to find traction on the guy’s arm despite her fucking mittens sliding everywhere. He grunts when Mac sinks her teeth into his hand, and Rion slams her foot into the side of his knee and revels in the way he crumples to the ground.

His grip loosens enough that Mac can scramble away, tucking her slight body behind Rion’s as she trembles. Rion lifts her foot high and brings it crashing down straight onto his kneecap, grabs Mac with one hand and their flour bag with the other, and tows her sister away while the goddamn asshole howls in the street.

He’s not running away with any little girls anytime soon.

***

Mac is in full-on tears by the time they get back to the flat. Rion locks the door and drags a kitchen chair under the knob, then crouches down and gathers her sister in her arms.

She calls Jamal, who is at their front door not quite an hour later, having begged his dad’s car off him. They empty the flat of the most valuable things they own, packed into bags and a laundry basket and the rest just carried out in their arms. Rion makes sure that all the lights are off, gives the place the finger, then locks the door behind them.

***

Jamal’s family is already tight in their little flat, but his mother refused to let them go anywhere else, after hearing what happened.

“Snatching a girl right off the streets,” she says darkly. “I’ll not have it, not here. Have you had enough to eat, Mackenna?”

Jamal normally shares a room with his little brother, who has been temporarily shuffled into the living room corner on a mattress that Rion and Jamal had strapped to their car roof. Rion and Mac squeeze themselves into the twin bed that little Marcus normally occupies, and Rion waits until the breathing next to her turns soft and slow before she whispers across the room to Jamal.

“I don’t know what to do.” It’s honest, but weak. “I’m not sending her alone to school, anymore.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Jamal says in the darkness, and she knows that he’s just as lost as she is.

***

Rion keeps bringing her CV around town, but most everyone turns her away with regret written on their faces. She even swings past the places she visited previously, to let them know that her address has changed, but they tell her not to worry, they’ve already hired someone for the spot.

She waits until Mac is asleep at night before she allows herself precisely thirty minutes of crying into Jamal’s shoulder.

***

Rion pays their way by taking over most of the cooking and helping with laundry, which mostly means she acts as a second set of hands to carry everything to the laundromat. Jamal has been doing this every week since he was twelve, and he bustles through the movements while Rion carefully rations out the soap to add.

She folds the clothes neatly to make sure there’s enough space in the baskets for everyone’s things to fit, and finally they’re on their way back to the estate, fresh sheets and underwear for all. It’s felt like an almost-normal sort of day, except for the black cab parked directly in front of Jamal’s flat. It gleams so brightly that it may as well be the sun.

It’s not her proudest moment, but she lets Jamal shoulder ahead and open the door first. 

Rion feels like maybe she shouldn’t be surprised that Eggsy is there, seated on the chair next to the telly, with Mac and Marcus about two inches away from hanging all over him.

Jamal’s parents sit across from him, looking shell-shocked to Eggsy’s preternatural calm. He’s always been cool in the face of danger and idiocy, but he’s brought it to a new level, now. He’s not in that damn posh suit again, but even his trackies sit on him differently, like he still feels the tie around his neck and the crisp lines of a jacket.

“Here, let me,” he says, standing up and reaching for the basket in Rion’s hands. She stares at him over it, her hands clenched tight around the edges. Eggsy gives it two soft tugs, then lets go when her grip doesn’t loosen. “Will you at least sit?”

“Bossing me in my own house, mate,” Jamal says, tone nearly hitting flippant as he slouches down against the wall.

Eggsy rubs at his face for a moment, then says it.

“I’ve been an utter shit, for being gone so long, I know. But look. I’ve got jobs for you, if you want ‘em.”


	8. Chapter Eight

“This is _bullshit,_ ” Rion says. She can feel her eyebrows climbing, and she can’t do anything to make them stop.

They’re standing, the four of them, in front of a few stone steps that lead to an intimidatingly large wooden door. Three well-suited mannequins stand tall behind the spotless glass of the windows, over which ‘Kingsman’ is painted in fine gold lettering.

Rion shuffles her worn trainers on the sidewalk and tries not to pull at her thin shirtsleeves. Eggsy isn’t dressed in a suit today, but he still acts like he belongs on Savile Row, like he’s come up these stairs a thousand times before, even in his flashy Jeremy Scott jacket that ought to look completely out of place here.

She thinks that maybe he has.

A tinkling bell rings when they push through the door. The carpet is plush under her feet, and the interior smells like something strange but good. The lights are soft but not dim, and the man behind the counter is elderly but not doddering.

Mac’s hand is already held tight against her palm, but Rion squeezes her sister’s fingers tighter, and it’s testament to everything they’ve been through lately that Mac doesn’t protest against the pressure. “Hi, Tom,” Eggsy says breezily, pausing a few steps inside to inspect an impeccably arranged display of ties. Rion hardly knows what to look at, herself. It’s all so pristine.

The old man looks incredibly pleased to see Eggsy. “Some new customers, have we?” he says, then beckons Mac over with a wiry hand to present her with a bowl of scotch mints. Rion hates the way that Mac’s fingers leave hers, but there hasn’t been money for sweeties for ages, and her eyes glow when the mint hits her tongue. “And one for the lovely lady,” Tom says, rattling the bowl, and it takes all of Rion’s willpower to keep her feet still.

“No, thank you,” she says as politely as she can, when her mouth waters for the taste of pure sugar. She’s still not entirely clear what Eggsy thinks he can do for them here, in this posh shop where she doesn’t know the proper name for a single piece of the clothing on display, but she’s not about to ruin her chances for good work by jumping on sweeties like a child. She pretends not to see Mac slip a small handful of them into her pocket, where they’re likely to melt straight into the fabric. 

“Is fitting room one open?” Eggsy asks, and then gestures them all inside when Tom nods.

It’s a bit tight, with the four of them inside and the door closed. Rion stares at the full-wall mirror, and meets Eggsy’s gaze when he steps up next to her, and places his palm right against the glass, fingers spread wide.

She’s about to give him shit for smearing the pristine glass that someone else is going to have to clean when the floor shifts beneath them.

Mac yelps and sinks her fingers into Rion’s arm. Rion watches the mirror rise up above them, except not really, because they are strangely sinking down through an impossible hole, strangely far considering that the room should not be moving at all.

She can see Jamal wanting to touch the bricks as they pass by, fingers hovering over the wall, and then suddenly light shines in from behind them, and there’s an underground shuttle just waiting for them.

“ _Bullshit,_ ” Rion repeats, as they step into the shuttle and it takes off, no instruction needed.

“You’re starting to freak me out, mate,” Jamal says, once it’s clear that this trip isn’t going to last only a minute or two to the next stop. 

Eggsy is sprawled into one of the plush seats, looking indolent in his trackies. “I promise, only good things,” he says, because he’s been terribly evasive since tempting them with real work.

“How far does it go?” Mac asks, pressing her face to the door window, trying to peer further down the track. “How does it know when to stop?”

“It’s only got two stops,” Eggsy says. “And we should be arriving there any second.”

It’s kind of disgusting how the shuttle immediately begins to slow.

The doors slide open with a soft hiss, releasing them out into a modern, sterile sort of room, the exact opposite of the warm, antique class of the tailor’s shop. There’s a big window in front of them, and it takes Mac two seconds to have her nose squashed against it.

“Whoa!” she says, loud and excited, and Rion is about to hush her when she gets a glimpse herself.

There’s no words for a moment, and then, “Holy shit,” she says, because there’s really nothing beyond cuss words that really feels appropriate anymore.

It’s like a military warehouse out of a movie, packed with planes and helicopters and cars of every sort. Everything is polished to a bright gleam, and people move around the vehicles with the ease of familiarity, dressed in neat uniforms and carrying tools and clipboards.

Rion leans up close to the window next to her sister, feels Jamal step up on her other side, and together they stare at the bustle below.

“Impressive, innit?” Eggsy says, sounding pleased as punch.

“This is unreal, mate,” Jamal says, low and hushed. It’s so beyond unreal, really, but Rion doesn’t think she could say it any better.

It’s strange, how the puzzle starts to click into place, one odd shape after another. They finally step away from the big picture window and start down a long, winding hallway. The people here nod respectfully to Eggsy, call him _Mordred_ and give him sunny smiles. It’s a picture that doesn’t seem like it ought to make sense, but suddenly Rion is certain she can see the final image, even if she’s not entirely sure how it’s meant to all snap together yet.

Mac doesn’t get it, though, and she’s equal parts excited and alarmed by the time they reach a sitting room that feels much more like the tailor’s shop, burnished copper and worn wood. It feels like they’ve been walking for ages, and Rion isn’t sure how much of it is misdirection, and how much of it is simply a sprawling building.

There’s a man already seated at the head of the table, hair shorn right down to the scalp, eyes looking harried behind fashionable frames. A woman stands next to him, hair pulled into the most severe bun Rion has ever seen, excepting Professor McGonagall. “Eggsy,” the man says, beckoning them inside.

Eggsy shuts the heavy wooden door behind them, and quietly gestures them closer to the far end of the table. The man rises to his feet, but says nothing.

“Aw, shit,” Eggsy says suddenly. “Rion, Jamal, this is Merlin. Merlin, Rion Cassidy and Jamal Brown. And this here is Mackenna.”

And only then does the man extend his hand, shaking everyone’s politely, even Mac, who giggles when he pumps her arm briskly up and down.

“May I introduce Beatrice Hill, our chief of staff?”

Beatrice Hill’s handshakes are just as severe as her hair, and even though she says, “How lovely to meet you,” her mouth doesn’t turn out of its pursed frown at all. “I understand that you are both in need of work?”

“Well, I mean,” Jamal says, clearly nervous. “I’m working at Waitrose right now. As a part-time manager? But they don’t always need me, things being what they are, and all.”

If he wasn’t nearly falling all over himself about it, it would almost sound impressive. As it is, this Beatrice Hill looks as if nothing has ever impressed her, ever.

“Yeah, I’m looking for work,” Rion says, jerking her chin a little higher. What of it? She’s proud, but she’s not stupid.

“Eggsy informs me that you have some experience with small children.”

“I used to watch his sister, sometimes, and I nearly raised Mac myself.”

Mac is nine, now, but Rion was only twelve when her little sister was born, and she’s practically been a parent ever since.

Beatrice Hill stares at her so keenly that Rion wants to shift under the weight of her gaze, but locks her knees and plants her feet and stares back. Eggsy wouldn’t bring her here for nothing. He wouldn’t dangle a job in front of her nose only to let it be snatched away. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t.

“V-Day was… hard on us, internally. Beyond losing a handful of our agents, we also lost some of our support staff, particularly those who were off-shift and in proximity to someone else with a Valentine’s SIM card.”

“Wait, the SIM cards did this?” Jamal asks, eyes darting between Eggsy and Beatrice. “What… how?”

“A story for another day, mate,” Eggsy says.

“At any rate,” Beatrice continues, looking displeased at being interrupted. “We need to replenish our staff. However, finding quality, dependable people for this line of work has rarely been easy, and is more difficult now than ever. Mr Unwin recommended both of you for positions here, and claimed he’d never met two more loyal people in his life.”

Rion kind of wants to cry. She wrinkles her nose to hold back the sting behind her eyes, and clutches Mac’s hand tightly when her sister slips her fingers into her palm.

“Of course, we’ll need to put you through the most stringent questioning, but, frankly, we need the hands,” Beatrice says. “But shall we give you a tentative welcome to Kingsman?”

***

The testing is ridiculous.

Rion lets herself be hooked up to machines that read her pulse, her breathing, her body temperature, the electrical pulses in her brain, and answers a thousand questions.

She doesn’t really care when they pry into her life and examine the truthfulness of her statements in the squiggly lines painted across screens and paper. Eggsy said she was the right person for the job, and goddammit, she will be.

She’s interviewed by four separate people over the course of three hours, before they feed her dinner. It’s only a roast and potatoes, but it’s the best thing she’s eaten in forever. Mac swirls the last bit of her potatoes around her plate, leaving no trace of her meal behind. Rion is pretty certain that she’d promise these people whatever they wanted, if they’d only keep feeding her like this.

They get taken on a tour of the sprawling estate house that is even more impressive from the outside than it is coming in by tube. Mac insists on asking Beatrice an endless stream of questions about how many rooms are in the house, and how many people live there, and why are they digging up so much of the lawn? Beatrice, surprisingly, answers most of them.

It becomes clear what kind of work they have in mind for Rion; some of their remaining agents have children, ranging in age from newborn to eleven years old, and sometimes they need last-minute minding arrangements. The support staff sometimes bring their children in, too, and Rion is meant to watch an ever-changing group of children in the safest place they can be.

Beatrice has barely finished talking before Rion is scrawling her name across the bottom of the contract.

***

She signs a swath of documents, actually, a ream of paper that covers herself and Mac, too. Her salary, plus room and board. More money than she’s ever dreamed of making. She manages to wait until they’re back in the little apartment that’s going to be their new home before breaking down, holding Mac close and letting her sister’s hair soak up her tears.

There’s a corner of the estate that acts as a nursery, out of the way of the more violent aspects of Kingsman. The windows look out over the lush lawn, where new recruits jog along a pathway and Merlin stands with his ever-present clipboard to supervise them. There’s two cribs, usually empty, and a couple single beds for the older children in another room. There’s a play area, and a small kitchen where Rion can prepare meals for her charges.

When there’s no children present on the grounds, Rion is tapped to help out anywhere she can. The place is huge, so there’s always something to clean, and the kitchen staff have been running on a skeleton crew for weeks, apparently. She peels carrots and makes friends with the existing staff, who warm to her once she explains that she’s friends with Eggsy.

“Such a sweetheart,” one of the older ladies says. Her accent isn’t particularly crisp, but she sounds like she ought to be everyone’s grandmother.

Jamal gets landed on the maintenance crew, who cover everything in the building from cleaning to repairs. Lately, they’ve been helping the grounds crew rip up sod and prep the earth for a massive vegetable garden. The work they do is too important for the staff to go hungry, and Eggsy says that the new Arthur insisted that they become as self-sufficient as possible, until things settled down again.

They’re all gathered in the little apartment that Rion and Mac share on the estate; two bedrooms, a bath, and a little kitchen that spills out into a cozy living space. It’s not much larger than their flat in London, but everything inside it is so much nicer. The couch doesn’t have springs threatening to push through, and there’s always something decent to eat in the fridge.

Jamal shuffles a deck of cards and deals them out with a snap of his wrist. Eggsy has gone from pretty good to downright brilliant at poker, mostly because he’s finally figured out to hide the worst of his tells, but they only play with a handful of coins each. It’s still good fun, and Rion fans her cards and gives Eggsy her cockiest smirk to hide the fact that she’s got basically nothing in her hand.

Mac is curled up on the couch by her side, in fuzzy pyjamas and new slippers that are dangling half off her feet. Rion had draped a blanket over her slumbering form to keep her warm an hour ago, after she’d nodded off in the middle of telling a story. There’s a school out here, in the small town that the Kingsmen estate is closest too, and Mac comes back every day brimming with excitement about the people she’s met and the things she’s done.

“How was your first day?” Rion asks Jamal, as he taps his cards into a tidy stack. She’s already four days into minding the most precocious children she’s ever met, but Jamal had taken the extra time to make sure his family was going to be alright without him around.

“It’s not much responsibility, right now. But Stewart is going to teach me some construction starting next week. Drywall and basic electrical work, that sort of thing. They’ve always got something that needs updating, and it’s best if it’s kept internal, you know?”

They’re going to turn Jamal into a jack-of-all-trades with a secure future and useful skills, and Rion can’t help but beam at him. Eggsy punches him lightly on the shoulder, and Jamal only tries to ignore their pleased faces for a moment before he grins.

“Seriously,” he says. “Thanks, mate. I would’ve been caught in dead-end jobs forever, without you.”

“I’d never leave my family behind,” Eggsy says seriously.

Maybe it’s the feeling of having her favourite people safe and close by, or the knowledge that she’ll wake up in the morning to a respectable job helping respectable people, but Rion can’t help but lean over and capture Eggsy in a hug. Jamal piles on a moment later, and Eggsy protests from beneath their tangled arms.

“Still think he should’ve run that fox over?” Jamal asks her over Eggsy’s grumbling.

“Nah. Maybe he had the right of it, after all.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Eggsy says, finally shaking them off. “Stop with the Coronation Street special already. I thought we were playing poker.” Rion gives him a smackingly loud kiss on the cheek before she sits back, just to see him roll his eyes.

Jamal flips a card off the top of the deck to start the deal, and turns over the king of hearts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! Thanks to everyone who stuck with me for the long-term on this one; I know I'm not the most reliable of posters. I sincerely hoped you enjoyed it, and as always, I love to get your comments and feedback.
> 
> Also, if you're a fan of Roxy/Merlin, don't forget to check out my R/M trilogy in my other works!


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